Colombian congressional and presidential elections - March 13/May 29/June 19, 2022

[Hash]

Implication being that Pacto rigged the vote just to get less than 15% of vote in the Senate?

Well, it's up to 16% now with the escrutinio. But uribismo's main talking point is that "400,000 votes appeared for Petro's Pacto out of nowhere", which conveniently ignores the reasons why the Pacto gained 400k votes (and not 'out of nowhere') and ignores the fact that the preconteo has no legal value and doesn't decide election outcomes in any way. But it is a talking point that could appeal to their base because, presented like that, it does look like something fishy happened and it is clearly irregular and anomalous compared to previous elections (the variation in the escrutinio vs preconteo was a net gain of just 23,000 votes in 2018, for example). And then you have the conspiracy theories being spread by the crazies, ranging from Pastrana's "the Spanish software company Indra is controlled by the PSOE/Podemos and rigged it for Petro" to Uribismo's "VENEZUELAS!!!!!!" (I haven't checked Cabal's Twitter so I don't know what she's saying about this).

In any case, judging from what actual experts are saying, it doesn't seem as if a full recount is even legally possible. The constitution allows the CNE to review the escrutinios and electoral documents at any step of the electoral process to guarantee the veracity of the results. However, there is no legal possibility for there to be a full national recount - there may be recounts only for specific reasons, like any location with tampering/mark-ups on the E-14 form. It doesn't seem as if there are is a legal reason now for there to be a full national recount. Besides, even if it is possible, it is a logistical nightmare which some say could take up to 2 years. Very cool that not only is Alexander Vega an incompetent clown, he also doesn't even know electoral law.

On the other hand, Petro's claim that the chain of custody is broken (which implies that bags with votes can be tampered with now) is false and there's no evidence to back up his claim. The votes and all other electoral materials are in the hands of judges, and will remain locked up with them until 2026 - they will not be in the hands of the 'uribista CNE' as Petro claims.

As for the polls, well, Fico is getting a big primary bump. It looks impressive because he's getting a sudden name recognition growth spurt, a primary bump (recall that most previous polls, for dumb reasons, just included all primary candidates in the same scenario) and a consolidation of the right/uribismo behind him as a result of the primary, Zuluaga dropping out and the centre's bellyflop creating a left/right narrative. The right probably looked artificially weaker than it actually was in pre-primary polls because it was split over several candidates with low name recognition or high unfavourables (Zuluaga). On the other hand, Petro's primary bump looks less impressive because he already had high name recognition and was already the presumptive nominee and frontrunner.

In 2018, Duque had a similarly huge primary bump for reasons similar to Fico (he jumped from less than 10% in early February to around 20% right before the March primaries and suddenly to 40-45% in the first post-primary polls. In 2014, Peñalosa got a primary bump which pushed him into second in most polls, and there were lots of articles about how he'd be Santos' rival (and probably win the runoff) and how Zuluaga would get destroyed. We all know how that finished for all parties involved. In 2010, Noemí Sanín was in second in the first polls after she won the Conservative primary (which had a lot of votes! More than the famous Green primary in fact), and in the end she finished fifth. In other words, primary bumps don't really predict the future. I'd wait and see a few more weeks, even a month, before trying to make conclusions.

[Hash]

And now Vega has said that the Registraduría won't request a full recount after the majority consensus among all parties was against it. At the meeting convened by the government, Vega was extremely defensive while nearly all party representatives criticized him and the Registraduría.

Basically only the CD, MSN and Green Oxygen supported a full recount and the Conservatives were neutral, and all other parties were against it. Most of them also emphatically stated that there was no fraud, even the interior minister stated that he heard no party talk of fraud. It's very good that the parties came to their senses and realized the recount proposal as an impulsive and improvised bad idea with no legal backing. It would have been nice if Vega had the intelligence, maturity and common sense not to impulsively present such poorly thought out and legally dubious ideas that set the political world on fire in the first place, but we know he's a moron who probably would struggle to run a student council election.* The correct solution, and most parties agree, is to allow everyone to present challenges to the escrutinio at whichever level and ensure that all complaints are resolved fairly.

(* to say nothing of the other idiot, Ivanchis Duque, chiming in to say stupid things when his constitutional role is to remain neutral. Jesus Christ, Duque will continue to be an embarrassing joke until the very end - go back to Europe to talk nonsense about your orange economy!)

Uribismo however seems dead set in going full Trump and yelling nonsense about fraud, and the furibistas seem particularly furious that they were abandoned by nearly everyone else today. They're sore losers who can't stand democracy when it doesn't go their way. Here is two-term senator Paloma Valencia showing her ignorance of basic legal facts by saying she will 'insist in the preconteo' -- cool stuff Paloma, but that thing has no legal value, anyone who is half-literate knows that. You can insist on it forever, it won't make it real.

https://mobile.twitter.com/NoticiasCaracol/status/1506354252201050125
A summary of recent events:

[Hash]

Francia Márquez will be Petro's running mate -- somewhat surprising given that he didn't seem very keen on keeping his word (that the runner up in the primary would be his running mate). She's a good choice and of course comes in as the phenomenon of the primaries, with over 780,000 votes and helps ensure that these votes stay with Petro (Fajardo had been eyeing them). She also strengthens his feminist credentials, after the Álex Flórez elbowgate incident (and bad memories of how he stood by Hollman Morris in 2019).

On the other hand she was chosen because Petro hasn't been able to consolidate alliances outside of the Pacto, most notably with the Liberals because César Gaviria is playing hard to get and taking his sweet time. Márquez won't soften Petro's image or move him to the centre - she's less 'pragmatic' than he is when it comes to forging alliances (she had criticized an alliance with César Gaviria) and is more willing to take clear stances on controversial issues (abortion, environmental rights) than Petro.

Definitely a much stronger pick than Murillo for Fajardo. Now the only thing left to see is Fico's running mate: I think the new deadline is Friday.

In recount news, the CD will request a full recount to the CNE, as they have the right to do so. It is unlikely that the CNE will accept this request after yesterday's meeting (for reference the CNE has 2 CD, 2 Liberal, 2 CR, 1 Conservative, 1 U and 1 Polo/opposition magistrates with 6 votes required for decisions). Duque has now changed his mind and said he supports the ongoing escrutinio process, after having called for a full recount 2 days ago.

[Hash]

César Gaviria has ruled out any further talks with the Pacto after Francia Márquez went after him yesterday in the event introducing her as the vice presidential candidate: she said that Gaviria represented neoliberalism and 'more of the same'. César Gaviria really didn't like her remarks because last night he fired off a statement calling Márquez's "rude, false and malicious" remarks an "unacceptable offence" and closing the door to any further talks with the Pacto and criticizing its "incendiary language". Nothing she said is particularly wrong (quite the opposite) but remember guys, the real victims in Colombia are rich old white males who previously served as president. Please don't be rude and offensive to them.

This puts an end to Petro's wooing of the Liberal Party's leader(ship), which at times seemed to be going well, but which seemed to be hitting a dead end since March 13. One suspects that this was a calculated move by Petro, perhaps frustrated by Gaviria's indecisiveness over the past ten days or so. A formal alliance with the Liberal Party would have been a momentum boost and could have softened Petro's image for those still anxious about him, but carried a major risk for Petro's own left-wing base which largely dislikes Gaviria and all that he represents. Petro, however, still has pretty substantial support among some Liberal congressmen and the party's rank and file/bases.

Francia Márquez seems to have triggered some pretty despicable (racist) reactions from certain people, including affluent liberal elites, both for her remarks about Gaviria and using inclusive language (she said 'mayores y mayoras' and todos, todas y todes). Héctor Riveros, a liberal columnist (close to Gaviria) who I usually appreciate, said that Francia Márquez doesn't know history and implied she can't criticize the Liberal Party because... the Liberals abolished slavery in the 19th century and the Liberal governments promoted the constituent process for the 1991 constitution. Some liberal constitutionalist said that racism was never a problem in Colombia (yeah definitely no problem with racism when half of the commentariat lose their heads when a black woman becomes a serious contender for the vice presidency!).

Right-wing bargain bin columnists and uribistas went crazy because she said mayores y mayoras (even though, as smarter people in El Espectador point out, Afro-Colombian and indigenous communities have referred to the wisdom of their elders, both male and female, using those terms for a while, and mayoras is a real word). Apparently using inclusive language is the real crime, not Álvaro Uribe's entire criminal history. At least it's refreshing to see that right-wing bargain bin op-ed columnists have the same bizarre obsessions everywhere in the world. Meanwhile, Rodolfo's former putative running mate for a week, Paola Ochoa said that... Fico should choose a man as his running mate because any woman would look wealthy and cute next to Francia Márquez?!? (Ochoa's racism and ignorance of a world outside of northern Bogotá is nothing new though).

[Hash]

Fico has finally announced his running mate and it's a surprising choice: Rodrigo Lara Sánchez, former Green mayor of Neiva, Huila (2016-2019).

Lara Sánchez is a doctor who is the illegitimate son of former justice minister Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, a colleague of Luis Carlos Galán who was assassinated by the Medellín Cartel in 1984, in retribution for being the first politician who actually had the courage to go after their criminal enterprise. Never recognized by his late father, he is the half-brother of outgoing ex-CR senator Rodrigo Lara Restrepo, but they've been distant politically for most of their lives and were on different sides in elections in 2010 and 2015. Recently, they seem to have reconciled with the recreation of their father's party, Nuevo Liberalismo, though I'm not sure where things stand now that Lara Restrepo's presidential bid was halted and his falling out with the recreated party.

Lara Sánchez was a member of the Greens and close to Sergio Fajardo, unlike his half-brother who was in Vargas Lleras' CR until recently. Lara Sánchez ran for the Senate in 2010 on the open list of Fajardo's Compromiso Ciudadano movement, which fell short of the threshold. Lara Restrepo also ran for the Senate that same year, but for CR. Lara Sánchez won only 5,900 or so preferential votes, but Lara Restrepo fell just 30 votes short of the last seat for CR - and he blamed his half-brother for having allowed himself to be used as a homonymous candidate to 'steal his seat'. Lara Sánchez supported Mockus' 2010 campaign. He unsuccessfully ran for mayor of Neiva (where his father was from) in 2011, losing but doing surprisingly well. He ran again, with the Greens, in 2015 and won - with his half-brother having come to support a rival candidate.

Lara Sánchez seems to have done a pretty good job in Neiva, being recognized nationally for significantly improving the transparency of public procurement in the city (public contracts are one of the main sources of corruption in Colombia) although his agenda was otherwise criticized for being unambitious (primarily based on continuing and finishing ongoing projects he inherited).

It's a bit of a surprising choice since there was a lot of speculation that Fico was concocting something with Char, since a few days ago Fico was in Barranquilla with Char, the charista hierarchies as well as far-right senator María Fernanda Cabal (who seems to have gotten around to supporting the guy she called 'Duque 2' just a few weeks ago), for the Colombian team's World Cup qualifier against Bolivia.

It is, however, a pretty solid choice that reinforces Fico's rhetoric and strategy: Lara is a kind of independent 'non-ideological'/'centrist' pick which reinforces Fico's 'national unity'/'neither left nor right' strategy to gain centrist votes after securing the right, and he is also someone with no political godfathers (something Fico claims to be as well, although he's had ties with Uribe/uribismo for over a decade). Also pretty transparently an attempt to further squeeze Fajardo out by picking an ex-fajardista. So while Petro's vice presidential pick did not really allow him to expand his base towards the centre, Fico's pick does in theory allow him to convincingly move to the centre. However, Lara Sánchez is probably not very well known outside of Neiva (unlike Francia Márquez) so he probably doesn't bring any votes, so all that might kind of weaken his impact on Fico's campaign to the point of not making much of a difference. He might also get a bit of flack for picking a white male in a year when a lot of candidates (who are all white males except for Betancourt) are symbolically choosing women and/or Afro-Colombians as their running-mate: Fico will be, with Betancourt and Gómez, the only candidate whose running mate is *not* a woman or black.

All in all, besides Francia Márquez, the vice presidential candidates this year are not particularly strong figures in their own right: really hard to see a future president in any of them, unlike in 2014 or 2018. But Vargas Lleras' failure in 2018 and Marta Lucía Ramírez's disastrous time as vice president has probably killed, for a while, the idea of the Colombian vice presidency becoming something closer to the American vice presidency.

Also, this all adds to the ongoing demise of uribismo: their congressional defeat, their presidential candidate dropping out immediately without negotiating anything in exchange and Fico considering that he owes nothing to them and can run his campaign as he sees fit, which means ignoring uribismo. And all this, in good part, thanks to President Peppa Pig Duque screwing up big-time.

[Hash]

Some updates:

The final list of candidates, barring anyone dropping out, is fixed and the ballot papers have been presented: there will be 8 candidates:

Gustavo Petro / Francia Márquez (Pacto Histórico)
Fico Gutiérrez / Rodrigo Lara (Equipo por Colombia)
Sergio Fajardo / Luis Gilberto Murillo (Centro Esperanza)
Rodolfo Hernández / Marelen Castillo (Liga de Gobernantes Anticorrupción)
Ingrid Betancourt / José Luis Esparza (Green Oxygen)
John Milton Rodríguez / Sandra de las Lajas (CJL)
Enrique Gómez Martínez / Carlos Cuartas (MSN)
Luis Pérez / Ceferino Mosquera (Colombia Piensa en Grande)

John Milton Rodríguez's candidacy may still be in limbo, as it could be revoked by the CNE given that it had previously invalidated the party convention where he was nominated.

Petro and the Fico are the frontrunners, Fajardo and Rodolfo are runner-ups/challengers, the other four are also-rans.

Petro is again at the centre of controversy and firestorm about press freedom, after he tweeted "neo-Nazis at RCN" in response to an op-ed piece by David Ghitis, a far-right uribista columnist (who is not really a journalist) for right-wing RCN (second most watched national TV channel, owned by the Ardila Lülle organization). Petro's comment was condemned by the FLIP (the press freedom NGO), saying that he was stigmatizing RCN and generating a climate of violence against the channel, and called on him to offer public apologies and respect press freedom and journalism. Petro and his followers didn't like the FLIP's rebuke and Petro has kind of doubled down in his attacks against Ghitis and RCN, notably arguing that Ghitis isn't a journalist and that the FLIP should also condemn the racist comments made by certain media figures/columnists against Francia Márquez. On the one hand, Petro shouldn't be calling people neo-Nazis and his hostile attitude towards any criticisms in the media is quite concerning. On the other hand, Ghitis isn't a journalist and RCN often has ridiculously biased 'reporting' and (like a lot of the Colombian media) regularly engages in yellow journalism. It's all quite tedious.

After Gaviria broke off talks with the Pacto last week, yesterday he met with Fico Gutiérrez and their meeting seems to have gone well. On the other hand, Pacto senator Roy Barreras, who is perhaps the most eager to form an alliance with the Liberals, met with Gaviria and proclaimed that he had "reestablished communications" with Gaviria and that the Liberal leader's 'red lines' were totally compatible with Petro's platform. Barreras dreams of building a 'progressive-liberal' alliance behind Petro which would form a solid governing coalition in Congress. Petro also met with Liberal representatives who are already on his side. At this point, I'm not sure if Gaviria will even formally give his party's endorsement to anyone: even if he's still mad at Petro, I don't feel as if he's particularly eager to endorse Fico in the first round. The most logical solution would be to not endorse anyone and leave the party members free to support who they wish (which is what the Greens have done, with limits on who they can support) -- a lot of Liberal congressmen have already made up their minds.

https://twitter.com/RoyBarreras/status/1509238865214771201

The interior ministry put out a non-binding legal opinion which says that Humberto de la Calle is forced to support Betancourt (when he wants to support Fajardo) because he was endorsed by her party, Green Oxygen. If he was to support anyone else, he'd fall into what is called doble militancia ('double militancy', or endorsing a candidate from a party other than your own) which is banned by law and could be grounds for losing his seat in the Senate. De la Calle responded by asking Betancourt to drop out to unite the centre, so that he could support Fajardo freely. Betancourt refused and said that de la Calle knew the rules and the consequences, and that nobody was taken by surprise -- in other words, you're trapped and you're forced to support my narcissistic presidential bid, regardless of whether you like it or not! Betancourt is also being disingenuous and dishonest in her comments: she did take everyone by surprise, because when de la Calle got her party's endorsement to run, in Nov-Dec 2021, she was part of the Centro Esperanza coalition and had made no indication that she would run for president herself, and it was only in January 2022 did she announce her candidacy without asking or telling anyone (and then left the coalition, again without asking anyone), so it's somewhat dishonest to say that he knew the rules. Betancourt is, once again, obstinately campaigning alone and burning bridges with everyone on the way.

Luis Pérez, the former governor of Antioquia, is trying to get attention for his longshot presidential campaign mostly by coming up with weird ideas - his political movement's name/slogan is, after all, 'Colombia thinks big'. His latest one, which goes with his proposal to legalize marijuana and substitute 200,000 hectares of coca with medical marijuana and create a 'green revolution' with cannabis, is to... change the flag to put the marijuana leaf on it:



His other big idea which I love is to reopen the prison on Gorgona Island (Colombia's terrifying Alcatraz on steroids until 1984) and send corrupt officials there. You have to respect the effort.

In final count news (still ongoing...), the Pacto has said that it has now gained a 20th seat and has 2.8 million votes. The new seat would come at the expense of the Liberal Party, specifically evangelical pastor Sara Castellanos (though I guess she'll get to the Senate sooner or later anyway if/when the Supreme Court issues an arrest warrant for Liberal senator Mario Castaño?). As the final count is confirmed, the Pacto's congressional performance looks increasingly impressive. In the House for Antioquia, the final count has also given a third seat to the Pacto, at the expense of the CD (which now has 4 seats left there).

[icc]

Is Betancourt's bid simply pure narcissism?

From the outside, it looks like a one-woman kamikaze mission to destroy the centre.

[Hash]

Is Betancourt's bid simply pure narcissism?

From the outside, it looks like a one-woman kamikaze mission to destroy the centre.

Yes, a one-woman kamikaze mission to destroy the centre is a good way of describing her candidacy - but I think the question is whether or not that was the initial intent when she surprisingly announced her presidential candidacy in January. I think the initial announcement was the result of pure narcissism, and the kamikaze mission came after her clash with Alejandro Gaviria (after being the one who helped facilitate his joining the coalition last year) and the kamikaze mission was kind of the result of her narcissism and political selfishness/inability to participate in any kind of collective project (which is kind of the defining thing about her entire political career).

Now her candidacy is a mix of narcissism, an unending kamikaze mission to destroy the centre because she holds grudges and a dumb manichean 'rage against the machines' crusade (even if she doesn't understand what machines are and who has them, because she's disconnected from reality).

On point, the latest nonsense in Betancourt's bizarre candidacy: she said that she is open to an alliance with the CD and has had contacts with them, with the only red line being the maquinarias and the goal being to form a united front without maquinarias. She also lamented how Uribe is going through a difficult situation right now and how everyone rejects him. Yes, please feel sorry for Uribe, he's the real victim here. Uribe likes this because he tweeted today about the need to continue dialogues with her.

Also, an united front with uribismo to defeat the machines is truly hilarious (and further confirms that she's clueless): yes, uribismo has no machines at all. Paola Holguín, Ciro Ramírez, Alirio Barrera, Esteban Quintero etc., these people totally don't have machines, and never mind that three senators are heirs of parapolíticos!

[Hash]

The latest political culture study from the DANE is quite interesting - there's a lot to go through, but I found the numbers on ideological self-identification quite interesting:



Overall, on a 1-10 scale, 44.3% identified as centrists (5-6), up 4.7% from 2019, 17.9% identified as right-wing (7-10), down 9% from 2019, and 14% identified as left-wing (1-4), up 2.3% from 2019. 23.8% didn't answer or don't know.

The most left-wing regions are Bogotá (19%) and Cauca (19.6%), the most right-wing regions are central Colombia (Antioquia, Eje, Huila-Tolima, Caquetá) (22%) and the Caribbean (21%).

The full presentation is here: https://www.dane.gov.co/files/investigaciones/ecpolitica/Presen_rueda_de_prensa_ECP_21.pdf and there are detailed files here: https://www.dane.gov.co/index.php/estadisticas-por-tema/cultura/cultura-politica-encuesta

[Hash]

New CNC poll for Semana, compared to their immediate post-primary poll:

Petro 36.5% (+4.4)
Fico 24.5% (+1.3)
Rodolfo 10% (-0.2)
Fajardo 8.4% (-1.3)
Betancourt 1.5% (-1.1)
Rodríguez 0.9% (new)
Gómez 0.5% (-0.2)
Pérez 0.3% (-0.3)
Others? 0.3% (-0.6)
Blank 8.1% (+2.8)
None 2.8% (+0.8)
DK/DA 6.2% (-6.5)

They also tested runoff scenarios unlike last time and the Fico/Petro runoff is surprisingly close:

Petro 43.1 / Fico 40.1
Petro 42.6 / Rodolfo 36.4
Petro 41.5 / Fajardo 38.3
Petro 44.7 / Betancourt 26

Of course, Semana is gonna Semana so they choose to make their frontpage with the runoff numbers and put Fico standing slightly in front of Petro...



I have also finally finished my very lengthy results analysis post on my Medium - honestly, I've posted most of it here already but I expand on certain things in more details: https://medium.com/colombian-politics-and-elections/2022-colombian-elections-march-13-results-analysis-6707d7544848

[Hash]

I'm glad to present the results by locality/comuna in Bogotá, Medellín, Cali and Manizales. These results are put together from the final count results, by matching electoral zones to respective comunas/localities. At least in these four cities, it's relatively easy to match zones to comunas, but I'm not sure that's the case in other cities, so I might not be able to make more local results like this (also the tables are huge and not very user friendly so this requires a lot of careful Excel busywork).

Note: Zona 90 is a centralized voting location which in Bogotá is located in Corferías. At least in Bogotá, those whose ID was issued between 1988 and 2003 and never registered their ID to vote anywhere else can vote there. Cárceles means jails and only prisoners who haven't yet been convicted are allowed to vote, and turnout is usually extremely low. Corregimientos are the rural subdivisions of municipalities.

Bogotá:


Map:


The CD only wins in Usaquén and Chapinero in the north, which include most of the wealthiest neighbourhoods of Bogotá (this also where Nuevo Liberalismo did best). The Greens-CE won in upper middle-class Barrios Unidos and Teusaquillo (Teusaquillo is famous for its Victorian houses and is sometimes described as an artsy area). The Pacto won everywhere else, doing extremely well in the poorest areas in the south of Bogotá, with over 40% (!) in San Cristobal, Usme, Bosa and Ciudad Bolívar which are the poorest localities in Bogotá. But the Pacto won thanks to doing very well in lower middle-class (socioeconomic strata 3), where urban elections are usually won in Colombia, as the results in Kennedy (which had over 336,000 valid votes, the second highest of any locality after Suba) show.

Medellín:


Map:


Medellín is an uribista city, but as is usually the case in Medellín there is a north-south divide, with the north being poorer and the south being wealthier. The wealthiest part of Medellín, which will be familiar to any foreign tourist, is El Poblado, and it is insanely right-wing - the CD won 61.2% there. Laureles-Estadio is the older affluent area (located directly west of the old downtown core, La Candelaria) and is also quite heavily uribista. On the other hand, uribista support was much lower (although sometimes still larger than any other party) in the poorer comunas of northern Medellín -- and while the Pacto did win three low-income comunas in the north, the poorest comunas - Popular and San Javier - were won by the Conservatives and CD respectively.

Cali:


Map:


The Pacto won everywhere in Medellín except for Comuna 22, which is the wealthiest comuna of Cali (small population, a lot of gated communities) and which saw some pretty disturbing scenes of (racist) vigilante actions by armed residents LARPing as paracos during the 2021 protests. Comuna 22 was the CD's best result, by far (37.5%). The wealthy/upper middle-class areas of Cali are otherwise located in Comunas 2, 17 and 19 which are also incidentally the only other comunas where the Pacto won less than 30% of the vote. The poorest parts of Cali is Aguablanca (Comunas 13, 14, 15 and 21) as well as Comunas 1, 18 and 20. In general, it's quite clear that the Pacto did best in the poorest parts of the city, many of which (like 'Puerto Resistencia' in Comuna 16 and Siloé in Comuna 20) were epicentres of the 2021 protests.

Manizales:


Map:


The Greens-CE won in Manizales, the capital of Caldas, because of the strong vote for former Caldas governor Guido Echeverri (who was elected) and former Manizales councillor/animal rights activist John Hemayr Yepes (who was not). They won all comunas but did best, with 34%, in Comuna 8 (Palogrande) which is the wealthiest area of the city (it was also, by far, uribismo's best result with 20%) and also got over 30% in Comuna 6 which also has some wealthy neighbourhoods.

[Hash]

Guarumo poll for El Tiempo from a few days ago:

Petro 34%
Fico 25%
Fajardo 9.5%
Rodolfo 9.3%
Betancourt 2.6%
Gómez 1.6%
Pérez 0.3%
Rodríguez 0%
Blank vote 10.3%
DK/DA 7.4%

In the runoff, they show Fico beating Petro 43.5/40.1.

Guarumo is not a very good pollster and it has a right-wing bias (this poll has Duque's approval at 40%, yeah, sure!) and their poll for the congressional election was not very good (it had the Pacto in fifth, although they did anticipate the Conservatives' good results), and neither were their local polls in 2019. Their poll also has a smaller sample size than CNC's poll.

But we can make some general conclusions of the current state of affairs from this poll and CNC's poll: Petro has a sizable first round lead over Fico, and Fajardo and Hernández continue to languish in distant third/fourth with no sign of either of them making gains this past month. However, in the runoff, Petro's transfers are surprisingly bad and Fico's transfers surprisingly good, which makes it quite close (within the margin of error or close to it).

The bizarre Betancourt-Uribe storyline continues. Álvaro Uribe accepted her 'generous offer' to talk with her. Betancourt has clarified that she doesn't want an alliance with uribismo but would welcome the individual support of uribistas 'who are not of maquinarias' to join her 'great national pact against corruption' regardless of ideology. She says that she is grateful to Uribe for taking the decision to launch Operation Jaque, which rescued her from captivity in 2008, although the two of them haven't spoken since (a weird weird of showing gratitude).

https://twitter.com/AlvaroUribeVel/status/1510981768064688131

Not sure what game Uribe is playing here. Is his wounded ego flattered that Betancourt suddenly started praising him out of the blue? Is he playing a strategic game to delay/avoid the formal endorsement of Fico, perhaps as a favour to Fico who doesn't want (or need) the toxic public embrace of the CD? I strongly doubt a smart guy like Uribe would seriously consider endorsing a bad candidate who is polling 1-2%.

Betancourt's bizarre sudden embrace of uribismo went down about as well as you can expect it on the centre. Notably, Alejandro Gaviria (who she basically branded a pariah and horrible person for allying with teh evil machinesz) tweeted "hypocrite and opportunist..." and she responded like this, uh:

https://twitter.com/IBetancourtCol/status/1509984450955956224

I'm not sure if she's talking about herself, talking about Uribe (violence and intolerance are good descriptors of uribismo) or if she's really that delusional.

And while she wants to ally with uribistas, she is also fighting with her party's only two congressmen (de la Calle and Daniel Carvalho), who both oppose her, and basically telling them that they should go away: "I believe that at some point they should think about leaving the party because they don't agree with the decisions and I don't see how that could be solved, they have some obligations with the party". What a great way to build a party and coalition! Also she's disingenuous because floor crossing is banned.

[icc]

Am I right in thinking we still don’t have the final legislative results? Any update on when they’ll come through?

[Sebastiansg7]

Last Invamer poll, perhaps the top pollster in Colombia:

First Round:

Gustavo Petro - 43.6%
Federico Gutierrez - 26.7%
Rodolfo Hernández - 13.9%
Sergio Fajardo - 6.5%
Milton Rodríguez - 1.5%
Enrique Gómez - 1.1%
Ingrid Betancourt - 0.5%

Second Round Petro vs Gutiérrez:

Gustavo Petro - 52.4%
Federico Gutiérrez - 45.2%

All indicates that the second round will be between Petro and Gutierrez, although there have been indications that Rodolfo Hernández and Sergio Fajardo could join forces, which would be a particular alliance given that both candidates are polar opposites in character -not necessarily so in policy-. However, I don't think that such an alliance would reach the second place that currently Fico Gutiérrez holds.

[MaxQue]

I'm sure Hash will have way more details, but Betancourt just withdrew and endorsed Hernandez.

[Sebastiansg7]

Yes, Rodolfo Hernandez has been doing better in the latest polls, getting very close to Fico Gutierrez. Rodolfo is also more likely to beat Petro in the second round according to the same polls. Right now, right wingers and anti-petristas alike, are debating whether to support Fico who is still ahead by a few points, but is more likely to lose against Petro, or to support Hernandez.

[Sir John Johns]

Bad news for Gustavo Petro coming from Honduras:

https://twitter.com/thelma_mejia/status/1529643725659545603

Official statement of the [Honduran] Migrations signaling the detention of former senator Piedad Córdoba for carrying undeclared $68,000. This is huge

Statement of the Honduran National Institute for Migration:

The National Institute for Migration (INM) informs to the national and international community that the senator from Colombia, the citizen Piedad Córdoba has been temporarily detained for investigation for the carrying of about US $68,000 that weren’t declared and that according what has been stated are belonging to a Colombian businessman residing in the city of Tegucigalpa who is summoned by the prosecutor of the state of Honduras to make a deposition and for the corresponding process of law to continue.

Hashemite already mentioned the controversies over Córdoba (who has since been elected a senator) in last February:

Explosive revelations about Piedad Córdoba (8th on the Pacto closed list for Senate) which are in good part a throwback to the 2008 Raúl Reyes FARC computer files. One of her former advisers said she manipulated the release of FARC hostages to score political points for her and Chávez in 2007, and allegedly even advised the FARC to delay Ingrid Betancourt's release because of her value as a hostage. She is also accused of having acted as an agent of the Chávez government, and tied to Alex Saab, the corrupt businessman who did business with Venezuela until he was arrested in 2020. Serious stuff which makes the Pacto visibly uncomfortable, just like the right flinches when Char's name is brought up.

I don’t know much about Córdoba except for one episode, when in last January, information was delivered to the Colombian government by an Ecuadorian parliamentary delegation led by Fernando Villavicencio (investigative journalist turn politician who had many problems under Correa, being even forced to seek refuge with an Amazon indigenous community) about a 2013 private plane trip Córdoba allegedly made from Quito to Bogotá in the company of Alex Saab. On this occasion, the Ecuadorian embassy in Colombia publicly issued a protestation over comments deemed as insulting made by Córdoba on a Quito radio (she notably labeled Villavicencio as ‘a sewer rat’ and strongly hinted Ecuador isn’t a sovereign country and doesn’t defend its sovereignty).

I guess uribismo will now double down on accusations of ‘castrochavismo’ against Petro even if, as I understand, the left-wing candidate has sidelined the controversial senator.


Also, the same polling institute that was the only one to predict a victory of Kast in the 2021 Chilean presidential runoff and a victory of Le Pen in the 2022 French presidential runoff, has come with a new shocking poll:

https://twitter.com/AmericaElige/status/1527790445077610497

[Hash]

First, I apologize for neglecting this thread - I got predictably distracted by the French election and didn't have time to do much writing on the campaign.

However I do now have a Medium post which discusses most of the main events in the campaign. I also another Medium post which goes through Petro's platform in detail.

The polls

Here are the latest polls, before the final week polling blackout, published on May 19 or 20:

Invamer: Petro 40.6% | Fico 27.1% | Rodolfo 20.9% | Fajardo 5.1%
CNC: Petro 41% | Fico 23.9% | Rodolfo 21.9% | Fajardo 4.5%
Guarumo: Petro 37.9% | Fico 30.8% | Rodolfo 20.3% | Fajardo 4.3%
CELAG: Petro 45.1% | Fico 20.1% | Rodolfo 20.4% | Fajardo 4.9%
AtlasIntel: Petro 40% | Fico 26.7% | Rodolfo 21.4% | Fajardo 8.8%
Mosqueteros: Petro 44.7% | Fico 22.4% | Rodolfo 15.8% | Fajardo 6.9%

Invamer and CNC are the best pollsters, CELAG is a left-wing think tank so it is basically a Petro internal, Guarumo is turning into a joke with its right-wing bias (and has had junk results in the past, like 2019), Mosqueteros is less well known and everyone here knows about the infamous Brazilian AtlasIntel.

All polls (except one) show Rodolfo Hernández over 20%, with a very quick and late surge which saw him go from 10-12% to 20%+ within about 20 days. However all of the final polls except CELAG still show him in third behind Fico, although the margin between second and third is quite small in CNC's poll (2%). All polls still show Petro way ahead in first place, mostly at or over 40%, but with some late signals that he is kind of running out of steam (after gaining slowly over the campaign since March). All polls, even right-wing Guarumo, show that Fico has very clearly stagnated (at best), while Rodolfo is coming up very quickly behind him. Fajardo has, except in AtlasIntel, slowly but surely seen his numbers drop further (from 8-10% to 4-5%).

So basically after a very stable (and boring) period throughout March and April in which it seemed quite certain that the race was between Petro and Fico (and that they would be in the runoff), there was a very sudden rodolfista surge in basically the last weeks of the campaign which has thrown everything open again. It is no longer certain, far from it, that the runoff will be Petro/Fico.

What happened to the numbers in the final week? In 2018, Fajardo had a late surge in the final week which took him from 16-18% in the final polls to nearly 24% in the first round, benefiting from late momentum (which has established the theory that he would have made the runoff had the first round been just a week later). It is quite clear that the only candidate with positive momentum in the final weeks was Rodolfo Hernández, so I feel that it is very likely that his surge has continued into the final week.

Moreover, looking at the good polls in greater detail, Rodolfo is in a great sweet spot for any candidate: he still has room to grow as his name recognition is lower than Petro and Fico (he grew from 57.5% to 70% name recognition from April to May among 'likely voters' in Invamer), and the people who form an opinion about him almost always have a positive impression (his favourability grew from 30% to 43% among all respondents in the same period, and his unfavourable numbers were stable). Rodolfo Hernández has probably now fully consolidated the 'centrists' and 'third way' voters who want to avoid a Petro/Fico runoff (the same as those who voted Fajardo in 2018 to avoid a Petro/Duque runoff). He has room to grow on the right among anyone inclined to vote strategically for the best candidate to defeat Petro on June 19, which is now Rodolfo (this was not the case before the surge).

Now, Petro and Fico have realized this and both stepped up their attacks against him, but there's no guarantee that they'll stick or make a big dent in his good numbers. Rodolfo also didn't show up to the last two (out of 6,754) debates this week, while Petro, for a change, did. This might or might not be a mistake - but I can't imagine who would want to watch a debate moderated by Vicky Dávila (I know I don't).

Will this be enough to make the runoff? Opinions really seem to be split here. I personally think that Rodolfo Hernández will finish second and qualify for the runoff. I see him finishing at or over 25% now (quote me later to call me an idiot or prescient). On the other hand, Fico is *the* machine candidate, even more than Vargas Lleras in 2018 (in part because Fico also has uribismo behind him, although uribismo is much weaker than in 2018), with basically all the main political clans in the country behind him. But machines really don't work very well in presidential elections, so I have my doubts about the argument that Fico will qualify because of the machines (or because he has the government infrastructure behind him, lol).

I won't make a prediction but just give my personal gut feeling now:

Petro: first but a bit below 40% (Rodolfo's surge might be getting to him now too)
Rodolfo: second at or over 25% (sustained momentum and positive trend)
Fico: third in the low 20s%
Fajardo: in the ditch at 2-4% (bottom is falling out and the trend is very bad)

I don't want to touch the runoff now before the first round but I think a Petro/Rodolfo runoff will be close and there is a very good chance that Petro will lose. But, yes, those AtlasIntel runoff numbers are junk. But the CNC poll shows that the runoff is tied and Invamer shows Petro just leading by 2.5%.

There will be strong regional differences in the vote: Rodolfo will absolutely dominate (I expect 50%+) in Santander and also do quite well in Nte de Santander as well as Boyacá, Casanare, Arauca, Meta and Cundinamarca. Fico will do best in Antioquia obviously but probably get strong numbers in the Eje Cafetero and potentially Huila and Tolima. Petro will dominate in Bogotá, the Caribbean and the Pacific coast including Valle. Some seem to think that Fico's strength out of Antioquia and paisa country will overpower Rodolfo's santandereano stronghold - let's see.

Rodolfo's surge

I look forward to the clueless foreign media trying to figure out who the hell Rodolfo Hernández is on Monday morning -- Colombia still hasn't really figured him out either. Be prepared for plenty of comparisons to Donald Trump or Silvio Berlusconi. Or lots of bad journos calling him 'a business magnate' (glad to see America Elects had just given up and called him * lol; you know it's rough when even those kids can't even come up with some ideology). Not *entirely* wrong but none of these things describe who Rodolfo is. He's a very eccentric, whimsical old man, a sort of crazy grandpa who says dumb stuff but who you love (especially since he's a senior citizen on TikTok). Politically he's Rodolfo, neither left nor right, but 'anti-corruption'*, 'anti-system' and 'anti-politiquería' (his slogan is 'don't lie, don't steal, don't betray, zero impunity). Unlike Fajardo, who is also anti-corruption and anti-traditional politics, Rodolfo expresses that in very colloquial, simple, unscripted and politically incorrect terms interlaced with lots of insults and swear words (whereas Fajardo will explain it in abstract scientific terms like a math teacher would). He has a genuine, spontaneous grassroots base in good part built through social media over several years now. Rodolfo is a real populist (or demagogue) in a style that is actually quite unusual in Colombian political history (or at least was, pre-2002): he basically only talks about corruption, his proposals on other issues are not well known and sometimes very vague and basic, and he is able to get people's attention with his tone or certain stunts (like the decrees he'd issue on day 1, or, more worryingly, saying he'd declare a state of internal disturbance to rule by decree and basically dare the ConCourt to knock them down).

He already had a first, smaller surge in November-December 2021 which ran out of steam by late February, and his campaign had a rough time in March and April, in part because he lost momentum and got crowded out from not being in the primaries (and his party, the Liga de Gobernantes Anticorrupción, not being on the ballot anywhere except in Santander for the lower house). It seems as if his final surge is a mix of growing name recognition combined with his supporters organizing 'caravans' in their towns on April 23, Rodolfo finally being convinced to leave Bucaramanga to hold events in other cities and to run late TV ads (his campaign is still spending way less on ads than Petro or Fico).

And yes, Ingrid Betancourt dropped out in his favour. She says he's the only candidate who can defeat "the system". I guess she's just glad she contributed to the destruction of the centre and Fajardo. Perhaps of greater importance is that he was endorsed (not too surprisingly) by Green senator-elect Jota Pe Hernández, the very annoying YouTuber/influencer whose campaign was similar to Rodolfo's with its simplistic populist focus on corruption. And a good chunk of Carlos Amaya's group in Boyacá is now with him too (Amaya is still legally forced to support Fajardo but has said he would support Rodolfo vs. Petro in a runoff).

* Rodolfo is the only candidate with an active judicial investigation for corruption. Not a particularly awful case by Colombian standards (he didn't murder anyone or ally with war criminals to win power, for example), but still.

Other news

My Medium post goes into details into other main events of the campaign which I'll just keep to summarizing quickly here:

- Petro's weirdo brother thought it was a good idea to visit La Picota prison over Easter to meet with convicted politicians, including Samuel Moreno's brother and even 'el Gordo' García (criminal former senator/cacique serving 40 years for masterminding a paramilitary massacre) and other beauties. To talk about a judicial reform that would include reduced sentences, in exchange for votes for Petro. The details are still unclear and bizarre: (a) these politicians have very few if any votes to offer, so they're not even interesting from that perspective, (b) Moreno and García were kind of sent to prison because of Petro's denunciations years ago so I doubt they love him, (c) there are claims and hints that Petro's idiot brother walked into a trap set by other prisoners, perhaps in coordination with political rivals (this sounds conspiratorial, but not unrealistic in Colombia), (d) it's not clear if Petro knew about this himself or only found out later. But Petro & co. handled it very poorly, and Petro's first reaction was *very bad*, telling La W radio that his brother went to prison to meet with Iván Moreno who had offered to help them build the 'social pardon', which is an old Petro idea (basically reconciliation and forgiveness with a hint of a pacto del olvido) which he is bad at explaining. His explanations kept changing, saying his brother doesn't work for his campaign and that he went to the prison as part of his work for a NGO (his brother got the memo and has gone with this version too). But while Petro's social pardon is unpopular and this scandal was badly handled by the campaign - it was basically the first damaging scandal for him of the entire campaign - Fico couldn't seize on it well. Fico went to La Picota but like everything Fico does, he turned it in a dumb meme-generating show (also Fico is allied with people who should be in jail, like the Gnecco and Char clans).

- César Gaviria endorsed Fico. I really thought Gaviria was smart enough to avoid a repeat of 2018, but I guess he holds grudges and doesn't tolerate a black woman calling him neoliberal. But the majority of the Liberal caucus supports Fico, although the endorsement was a symbolic agreement which doesn't formally bind the party and therefore doesn't legally prevent the pro-Petro minority from still supporting him publicly. In the past, this would have been a big deal, but in a year like 2022, it didn't do anything for Fico. In fact, recreating the infamous trio of ex-presidents from 2018 (Uribe, mentally deranged Pastrana, Gaviria) is not a good look.

- There was lots of talks for a long while about a Rodolfo-Fajardo alliance, particularly back when both were stuck in third/fourth and needed to find a way to prevent the apparently inevitable Petro/Fico runoff. Fajardo and Rodolfo had coffee together in late March, and a month later they met again to discuss the terms of a possible alliance and the mechanism to select a single candidate. For the time of about a weekend or so, an alliance between the two appeared likely, until the Invamer poll in April threw a wrench in those plans as it showed Rodolfo moving clearly ahead of Fajardo (14% vs 6.5%), which made it clear (to Rodolfo first and foremost) that if anyone was to drop out, it would have to be Fajardo. But Fajardo demurred, doubting the poll numbers. The plans fell through. There were rumours that they met again about 10 days ago, this time with the understanding that Fajardo would withdraw and endorse Rodolfo, but Fajardo quickly denied the reports. In any case, there are many legal and financial obstacles to Fajardo dropping out that always made this very difficult to work out (Rodolfo dropping out would have been much easier from a legal and financial standpoint). And since then, well, it's become clearer that Fajardo or not, Rodolfo can make it to the runoff on his own, potentially.

- General Eduardo Enrique Zapateiro, the commander of the army, attacked Petro on Twitter in April. Petro tweeted that some generals are on the payroll of Clan del Golfo (which is true, basically), and Zapateiro went after him (without ever naming him explicitly), warning him not to use his office as a parliamentarian to to play cheap politics with the deaths of soldiers and referred to an old Petro scandal from 2018 (since closed with no evidence against Petro) about him receiving money in bags. And then Zapateiro just kept going by beating his chest in an interview with Semana (who else?). The thing is: Colombia has a long tradition of military neutrality/non-intervention in politics, and also a long civilista tradition (unlike many other LatAm countries), so the commander of the army attacking a presidential candidate during an election campaign is very bad and very serious (and illegal, unconstitutional). Zapateiro is one of the far-right hawkish generals with an old internal conflict/internal enemy mentality that Duque has appointed to the military leadership since 2018, and he already has a record of saying terrible stuff (like being much more saddened by the death of Popeye, Escobar's former hitman, than by the army murdering innocent civilians).

- The left-wing mayor of Medellín Daniel Quintero was suspended from office for 3 months by the inspector general (procuradora), Margarita Cabello, for 'participating in politics'. He posted a 5 second Twitter video in which he used a slogan used by Petro supporters online (el cambio en primera, in the video he is shifting gears in his car while saying el cambio en primera). Officeholders are forbidden by law from openly supporting any candidate for elected office or otherwise ‘participating in politics’. On the one hand, Quintero was kind of asking for it by his very thinly-veiled support for Petro. On the other hand, he was sanctioned extremely quickly (suspended less than 24 hours after the video) in a politically motivated decision by a very politically biased inspector general (Cabello was Duque's justice minister right before Duque nominated her as his candidate for inspector general in 2020). In addition, while Cabello did try to give the impression of neutrality by also suspending a right-wing mayor (the mayor of Ibagué) for quasi-explicitly endorsing Fico back in March (and later suspended two other mayors of smaller towns for their blatantly obvious support for Fico at a blatantly politically charged event of the National Federation of Departments in April), she most notably has *not* suspended Gen. Zapateiro (his comments are much more serious for institutionality than Quintero's dumb tweet) and has never even said a word about Ivanchis Duque basically incessantly interfering in the election with his very thinly-veiled attacks against Petro (she cannot suspend him but could warn him). Moreover, the Procuraduría's decision is basically in open defiance of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights' rulings in the Petro case which state that an administrative body cannot remove an elected official from office.

- As for Quintero, well, he's really following the Petro playbook from 2013 - organizing mass rallies against the 'coup' and 'attack on democracy' by the Procuraduría, just like Petro organized mass rallies after his removal from office by the theocratic inspector general Ayatollah Ordóñez. Those things work at rallying your base behind you and reinvigorating them. Also, like Petro, Quintero is a narcissist who excels at playing the victim and this is a great opportunity for him to do that (and get his name out there for 2027). But don't fall for him. He's not a great guy, not a particularly good mayor and is very good at making people believe he's something that he's not (so he's a scam artist, like Fico, but left-wing). And his allies, who have now taken over the Petro campaign in Antioquia, are really not good people: nasty misogynists and ambitious twats like Álex Flórez, senator elect thanks to the good graces of the Pacto's closed list.

- The Clan del Golfo criminal/neo-paramilitary organization staged a terrifying 4-day paro armado (armed strike) after their leader, Otoniel, was finally extradited to the US in early May. The Clan del Golfo's armed strike - which meant roads blocked, forced lockdowns/confinements of entire communities, shops forced to closed, public transportation shut down and residents intimidated - managed to paralyze large cities like Montería and Sincelejo and most of the Caribbean, Urabá, Bajo Cauca and Chocó. It was basically the most horrendous example of the complete and utter failure of Duque's security policy. The government's response to this was terrible: after having failed to see it coming, they tried to make it go away by ignoring it, and once wishing an armed criminal group away didn't work (shocking, I know!) they just tried to downplay it with some dumb 'but ackchyually'.

- Uribe's trial will drag on (and on) as the judge hearing the case on April 27 rejected the Fiscalía's request to close the case against him (the witness tampering case that briefly got him house arrest in 2020, before he got out of it by resigning from the Senate to transfer his case to the Fiscalía, which is run by Duque's old classmate from university). Apparently the judge savaged the prosecutor's arguments, and now the Fiscalía needs to go back to step 1 and decide if they do indict him or if they try to request the case be closed again, with new arguments.

- Sadly for those who want the marijuana leaf on the Colombian flag or want to reopen Gorgona Island as a prison, Luis Pérez dropped out.

- Sir John Johns covered the Piedad Córdoba case very well already. I don't have much to say except that while she was a valuable politician in the past and that the Raúl Reyes computers was *probably* a botched attempt at political persecution by Ordóñez, she is a nasty individual who should not have been on the Pacto's list.

- Alex Vega is still in charge of running the elections on Sunday because incompetence is rewarded in Colombian politics under Duque. For various reasons, few of which have anything to do with Vega, we should avoid a repeat of the March 13 clusterfarck, but there's still widespread mistrust about the entire transparency of the elections by all sides. From Petro's recent baseless assertion that the government was plotting to suspend the elections to Pastrana somehow still going on with his dumb conspiracy theory about the Spanish company Indra.

- We can't forget our dose of comedy from Ivanchis Duque who we will all truly miss

https://twitter.com/bbcmundo/status/1528693010980081665

[Mike88]

Polls are now open in Colombia. This first round is basically a race for 2nd place and who will face Petro in the 2nd round, Fico or Rodolfo.

[Sebastiansg7]

Just came back from the polls. Honestly, it didn't seem that there were more people this time than during the parliamentary elections back in march. Anyways, hopefully Fico does not make it to the second round. The guy only knows how to put on a show, as he is an incompetent who has the backing of uribismo behind him.

[Mike88]

Just came back from the polls. Honestly, it didn't seem that there were more people this time than during the parliamentary elections back in march. Anyways, hopefully Fico does not make it to the second round. The guy only knows how to put on a show, as he is an incompetent who has the backing of uribismo behind him.

Isn't a low turnout rate bad for Rodolfo Hernandéz?

[Hash]

Interesting to see the ballot paper in San Andrés' English-based Creole

https://mobile.twitter.com/Miguel__nieto/status/1530935627931389953

Polls closing in just an hour and 40 minutes now.

[Red Velvet]

When can we expect results to start coming in?

[Hash]

When can we expect results to start coming in?

The presidential preconteo is very quick and there should be quasi-final preconteo results within 1-2 hours after polls close at 4pm local time.

[Velasco]

[

look forward to the clueless foreign media trying to figure out who the hell Rodolfo Hernández is on Monday morning -- Colombia still hasn't really figured him out either. Be prepared for plenty of comparisons to Donald Trump or Silvio Berlusconi.

I heard in today's morning news that Rodolfo is a populist like Donald Trump who once praised Hitler

Rodolfo Hernández sees Colombia as a "real estate project". A country that needs to be demolished, in order to rebuild it on new foundations. A sample of the press coverage in Spain

https://twitter.com/cataoquendo/status/1530976739303624704?t=jMQ_Z6j-MRC8p70G7EZ...